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MakerDAO, on the Significance of Multi-Collateral Dai and Dai Savings Rate

Exclusive interview with Gustav Arentoft: Part 2 (Link: Part 1)

MakerDao is the protocol behind Dai, the world’s first decentralized stablecoin and the contemporary success story for decentralized finance (DeFi). The project went live in December 2017, with Dai as the USD stablecoin and Maker functioning as the governance token. In the world of decentralized finance, MakerDao is by far the most popular DeFi protocol running on the Ethereum network and has been steadily increasing traction since its launch. After only a year and a half into production, MakerDao reached its all-time high market cap of $97M on July 9, 2019.

In part two of our interview with Gustave Arentoft, Business Development, Dai Speaker, MakerDAO: he shared with us the significance of the launch of multi-collateral DAI and Dai Savings Rate (DSR), as well as his favourite Dapps which integrates DSR.

The Future of Digital Cash Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) represents the future of digital cash, with a new Dai Savings Rate feature and the activation of a smart contract that paves the way for new collateral assets to back Dai. Maker is touting its arrival as a significant step towards the vision of creating a decentralized platform to help level the economic playing field for people around the world.

MCD was activated on the MakerDAO system on Nov. 18. MCD, as its name states, will enable users to create Dai stablecoins backed by multiple collateral types. The initial collaterals for MCD will be ether and basic attention tokens. The introduction of MCD also allows for today’s launch of the Dai Savings Rate (DSR), a feature that makes it possible to earn savings simply by holding Dai.

Arentoft commented on the launch saying, “It’s very similar to having a US dollar-denominated savings account. It works as a form of staking, the savings accounts will take some part of the profits from the system and distribute them back to the users on the system. One of the benefits of having a decentralized system is that we don’t have to abide by traditional monetary policy but can instead focus a lot more on helping people.”

The Dai savings feature could not only offer a shield to users living in regions where it becomes necessary to guard oneself against rampant currency inflation and poor government monetary policies, but it will also carry an interest rate which will potentially increase the users’ wealth. Reflecting on a personal note, Arentoft said, “I lived in Argentina for a year and a half before joining Maker, so I really have firsthand experience living in the oblivion of monetary uncertainty. Trust me, a Dai savings account would have been a gift from heaven during that period to protect myself and my finances, so I know that this product will really be capable of creating a very positive impact in communities that are often facing fiscal uncertainty.”

MCD Functionality and the Vault

In order to support MCD functionality and its features, such as the DSR and new collateral types, the core Maker Protocol smart contracts were rewritten. Therefore, users and partners interacting with Sai must upgrade their existing Sai tokens to Multi-Collateral Dai tokens (Dai) and Vaults (formerly CDPs) to the new system. Additionally, companies or projects integrated with Sai and Vaults must update their codebases to point to the new smart contracts and support the updated functions.

Arentoft offered some clarification on the change in terminology, “It was felt that some of these words weren’t really accurately describing what they really represented and bore too many similarities to traditional financial instruments. Therefore, a decision was made to go out and create some more informative terms—the vault, for instance, just represents the ability to hold collateral in the system, and the visual trigger represents how safe it is to actually hold assets and collateral in our system.”

Migration webpage of MCDSource: MakerDAO website

DSR Dapps

Prior to the launch of the MCD, the team at Maker rigorously tested the smart-contracts to uncover and integration issues and to ensure the decentralized applications (Dapps) featuring Dai on the Maker protocol would support MCD functionality.

Arentoft discussed some of his favourite Dapps, he said, “My personal favorite is Argent—it is a very easy to use smart contract based wallet that will have the DSR on launch as well as CDPs.” He added, “Of course there is Wirex, one of the biggest debit card providers with three million registered users, obviously it will greatly appeal to our users if you can keep Dai on a debit card while earning savings interest, which their product will. The key to these products is easy user accessibility and functionality as the world of decentralized finance can be a daunting place to the uninitiated.”

The Future is What We MAKER

Following the launch of the MCD, Maker will still have plenty of projects on the horizon. Arentoft shared, “We’re going to make a few enhancements to the infrastructure as well as build a token representation of the DSR. We also want to take a more focused and proactive approach with our partners and offer more in terms of support and resources.” Concluding our interview, he said, “In general, on the partnership side of things, we’ve already been pretty successful. This year, we’ve scaled from just 100 projects to 400 projects that use Dai in one form or another—we would like to continue to scale up. We don’t have anything as major as the MCD or DSR coming out but in fairness these are probably two of the biggest innovations ever in cryptocurrency so we can’t be expected to change the game every year. But there’s still a lot of exciting things to come so definitely stay tuned.

Stay tuned on Part 3 of MakerDAO’s interview, on staying compliant over 400 global partnerships!

CEX.IO Founder: US and UK Investors Expect Bitcoin to Serve as Hedge Against Currency Depreciation

Exclusive Interview with Oleksandr Lutskevych, CEO & Founder, CEX.IO

Oleksandr Lutskevych is the founder and CEO at CEX.IO LTD, a successful London-based group of companies, including CEX.IO Bitcoin Exchange. Established in 2013, CEX.IO is a multi-functional regulated cryptocurrency exchange registered as a Money Business Service (MSB) by the US regulator FinCEN.

CEX.IO is trusted by 3 million users in 220 countries and territories. In 2019, CEX.IO launched a dedicated US presence and has obtained Money Transmission Licenses in 25 states. They are able to currently serve 42 states in the US.

Lutskevych is a pioneer in the Bitcoin industry and serial entrepreneur with deep expertise in internet technology businesses. In this second exclusive interview with Blockchain.News, Lutskevych discusses the current Bitcoin market sentiments in the US and UK following Brexit as well as CEX.IO’s next steps for 2020.

Bitcoin Market Sentiment in the US

The US is one of the toughest jurisdictions for digital assets and cryptocurrency from a regulatory standpoint. As a result, the variety of services, products, and digital assets that are available to people in other parts of the world are not available to US investors.

Lutskevych said, “People in the US look at Bitcoin as a store of value more so than in other parts of the world. We see that at every level of sophistication, from retail consumers to institutions.” He explained, “The former (retail consumers) are price conscious, which is one of the main factors in their decision for which services to use. They want a trustworthy gateway into open finance and they carefully evaluate the fees and commissions, looking for clear pricing models.”

Institutions are also showing a growing appetite for BTC, Lutskevych said, “Even some of them, traditionally regarded as conservative, allocate a portion of their funds towards BTC as a way to diversify their assets.”

Comparing BTC Investment on Both Sides of Atlantic

According to Lutskevych, the UK and the US have very notable differences between what consumers want out of their investments but, “We have noticed that consumers in both countries are looking for bonafide store of value assets.”

“With the uncertainty of Brexit consequences and the effect it will have on the GBP, consumers have expressed similar sentiments to consumers in the US who are concerned about the Federal Reserve’s actions of quantitative easing,” Lutskevych said, “As both established economies may see, and fear, a clear depreciation of their currencies, Bitcoin can become a hedge against that. We notice that the strength of that narrative and public sentiment is only increasing.”

User-Friendly Staking

In part one of our exclusive interview, Lutskevych discussed CEX.IO’s continued geographic expansion of service across the United States with the exchange now operating in 42 states.

A second mission of CEX.IO in 2020, is to expand services to US residents that have been recently introduced to the exchange’s global customers. Lutskevych said, “Since the regulatory landscape varies in different countries, we distinguish between the services (and digital assets) we can offer to the clients outside and inside the US. Historically, we first introduce a service to the global clients, while vigorously researching the regulatory status of such a service in the US. Then we polish and adopt the service for our US consumers.”

An example of one such product set to make its US debut is staking. Lutskevych explained, “CEX.IO customers can participate in staking with relevant coins and easily receive the rewards on their crypto balance. Some people call staking rewards a form of a passive income, and it is certainly an interesting way to participate in the crypto economy.”

Staking is traditionally considered a thing for tech-savvy people, but CEX.IO has made it hassle-free. Lutskevych said, “For CEX.IO customers, staking is nothing more than storing coins and tokens in a CEX.IO account. At the same time, customers remain in full control of their crypto assets. They can trade and even withdraw staked cryptocurrencies at any moment, without needing to wait. It’s a huge competitive advantage considering that staked funds are usually locked.” He added, “Staking is certainly the service we look to bring to our US customers once we determine how it fits into our process with the remaining licenses.”

Other Services Coming in 2020

As the cryptocurrency industry continues to mature, professional traders and institutions are seeking different services than the general everyday investor. Lutskevych said, “Professional participants of the market usually operate at scale, they need liquidity solutions, advanced API, institutional-level custodial services, and an OTC desk.”

Having obtained a DLT license to provide those services in Europe, this year, CEX.IO is looking to expand them further to the US markets.

Lutskevych concluded, “Overall, we’ll continue building trust with our users and looking for better ways to serve them. Either by offering more services or improving our existing ones, we want to always keep our hand on the pulse of the market and remain agile to meet its evolving demands.”

Ethereum Hits Major Bullish Milestones in Anticipation of the ETH 2.0 Staking Upgrade

Ethereum wallets containing 32 more or more ETH, the amount needed to stake a validator node under the upcoming ETH 2.0 upgrade has hit an all-time high.

The number of Ethereum network balances with 32 ETH or more has been nearing 120,000, in anticipation of the proposed ETH 2.0 update. Validating nodes will be replacing miners in the current proof-of-work system to validate transactions to maintain the Ethereum blockchain.

Over the year, the number of wallets holding at least 32 ETH has risen around 15 percent, according to Nansen AI. Although the ETH 2.0 upgrade has been delayed several times, the major upgrade is expected to be deployed in July.

Ethereum network fees surpassed Bitcoin for the second time in 2020

Ethereum daily network fees have surpassed those of the Bitcoin network for the second time this year. On June 6, on-chain analysis data showed that the total amount of fees spent on the Ethereum network totaled $498,000, while Bitcoin’s total was at $308,000.

The next day, the gap continued its trend, widening to $540,000 and $258,000. Many crypto users suggested Ethereum “flippening” is happening, a term to describe other cryptocurrencies overtaking Bitcoin in value. The crypto community on Twitter went on to call this the “feepening.”

Ethereum addresses hit 100 million

Five years after the initial release of the Ethereum network, the number of ETH addresses/ accounts have reached 100 million in early June.

Although there are over 100 million addresses, this does not necessarily mean that there are 100 million people owning or using the cryptocurrency.

Vitalik Buterin says layer 2 scaling strategy has ‘basically succeeded’

Ethereum has been seeing an upward trend, and demand may increase further in anticipation of the upcoming ETH 2.0 update expected in Q3 2020.

Ethereum is scheduled to undergo a major change of its consensus mechanism, transitioning from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Ethereum has been expecting its scaling to occur for some time, and according to Ethereum’s creator, Vitalik Buterin, it could already be happening.

Vitalik Buterin recently tweeted that the Ethereum blockchain network’s “layer 2 strategy has basically succeeded.”

Previously, Buterin identified blockchain scalability has a difficulty for typical blockchain designs because it requires every node in the network to process every transaction, limiting the transaction processing capacity of the entire system.

To solve the scalability issue, the Ethereum creator identified strategies for scaling, including sharding, also known as the “layer 2 protocols,” which allows transactions to go through without every node processing the whole transaction.

Members of Congress Ask IRS for Relaxed Approach to Crypto Staking Taxes

Innovation friendly members of United States Congress have written to the IRS request a level-headed approach to taxing cryptocurrency staking rewards.

Four Representative of United States Congress have asked the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) to ensure they do not overtax staking rewards gained from cryptocurrency staking on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains, in a letter on Aug 4.

The letter put forward by Representatives Tom Emmer (R-MN), Darren Soto (D-FL), David Schweikert (R-AZ) and Bill Foster (D-IL) outlined the differences between PoS blockchain’s and Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains—like Bitcoin.

The letter explained:

“The Bitcoin network is secured by a relatively small number of “miners” who validate transactions as they “mine” new Bitcoins. In “proof of stake”, in contrast, all token holders can contribute to network security by “staking” their tokens and so many, or even most, token holders end up holding newly created tokens. This means that network security in proof-of-stake does not require massive amounts of energy consumption.”

The Congressional Representatives also believe that staking rewards should be taxed but that the IRS could be over estimating traders actual gains made via staking rewards.

Per the letter:

“We believe that taxpayers’ true gains from these tokens should indeed be taxed. However, it is possible the taxation of ‘staking’ rewards as income may overstate taxpayers’ actual gains from participating in this new technology.”

Representatives Letter to IRS Gains Crypto Support

The letter to the IRS was applauded by members of the cryptocurrency community and today Aug 5, the Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA) published a response on Medium commending the request by the four crypto-forward members of Congress.

“We applaud Congressmen Schweikert, Foster, Emmer, and Soto for their forward-looking leadership to ensure Proof of Stake blockchains and their ecosystems aren’t unduly burdened by regulatory red tape,” said Alison Mangiero, President of TQ Tezos, a POSA member company that builds open source software and drives adoption and awareness of the Tezos protocol. “Staking rewards, similar to a farmer cultivating produce and selling it at market, should be assessed for taxation when they are sold: we don’t tax an apple when it is plucked from a tree or a tomato fresh off the vine. This letter offers a common-sense solution for the IRS to support the development of this promising new technology and encourage more Americans to participate in its growth.”

IRS Already Under Scrutiny For Crypto Prejudice

As reported by Blockchain.News, the IRS has already come under fire as the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent department of the IRS and its official watchdog, recently alleged that Letter 6137 which demanded tax payer crypto disclosure in 2019—did violate the congressionally enforced Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

James Harper, a Bitcoin researcher, is the first to come forward and sue the IRS, its commissioner and nearly a dozen of its agents for violating his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights—his right to privacy and right to due process—through an illegal seizure of his records and for their infamous “soft” crypto Letter 6137, sent out in July last year.

According to the lawsuit, James Harper v. Charles P. Rettig, et al. before the United States District Court of New Hampshire, Mr. Harper argues that the IRS has “acquired the unbridled power” to demand and seize Americans’ private financial information from third parties without any judicial process which violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and statutory protections.

Harper who is a former Coinbase and Abra user, received the infamous IRS crypto Letter 6137 last year. The core message of the IRS’s letter was that the tax agency was already aware of all of the information on all US taxpayer’s digital assets and crypto accounts and demanded that they report their gains or offer a sworn letter of compliance under penalty of perjury—requiring nearly five years of tax documents in the process.

Trump’s Proposed Capital Gains Tax Cuts Could Benefit Ethereum 2.0 Stakers

President Donald Trump has proposed a capital gains tax cut which may greatly benefit United States cryptocurrency traders—particularly those planning to stake on Ethereum 2.0.

Trump’s proposed capital gains tax cuts, if passed, would most likely benefit Bitcoin and cryptocurrency traders in the US, and may offer some relief to those planning to stake on PoS chains like Ethereum—as the Inland Revenue Department (IRS) has recently turned its focus on this newer aspect of digital assets.

At a White House press conference earlier this week, US President Trump said that a capital gains tax cut was something his administration was very seriously considering, as it would “create more jobs.”

While President Trump will have to get lawmakers in Congress on the side to pass the capital gains tax cut, he could also issue an executive order and cut taxes by indexing capital gains to inflation.

According to Bloomberg, indexing capital gains to inflation (CPI) is where the original purchase price of an asset is adjusted so that no tax is paid on the appreciation that is tied to inflation when the asset is sold. For crypto traders, this could be the less ideal tax cut as cryptocurrency profits often make CPI appear insignificant.

US Capital Gains Tax for Staking

As reported by Blockchain.News, in Notice 2014-21, the IRS explained that they have applied general principles of tax law to determine that cryptocurrencies or virtual currency are classified as property for federal tax purposes.

United States citizens are required to report all gains and losses to the IRS—with every single transaction including when they earn cryptocurrency via staking rewards. Due to the property classification, any failure to report income on the sale of cryptocurrencies could incur penalties and added interest on the unpaid amount.

As Proof-of-Stake blockchains like, Cardano and Ethereum 2.0 looms on the horizon, paying a capital gains tax on staking rewards could be a nightmare for participating crypto traders who will need to record the amount and price at the time the staking rewards were distributed.

The impending rise of staking on blockchain’s like Ethereum spurred four Representatives of United States Congress to request that the Inland Revenue Service ensure they do not overtax staking rewards gained from cryptocurrency staking on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains, in a letter on Aug 4.

Should President Donald Trump manage to pass his proposed capital gains tax cut, it could allow stakers to keep more of the profits gained but unfortunately will not save them from the obligatory paperwork.

Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson Introduces New Feature to Enable Partial Staking in Multiple Stake Pools

Cardano’s Shelley mainnet upgrade has come a long way since its launch on July 29, 2020. Shelley has already reached two major milestones as it approached epoch 3.

IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson recently introduced Cardano’s delegation portfolios and hardware updates for Cardano in a recent YouTube video.

Cardano’s native cryptocurrency ADA holders can delegate their stake to a stake pool run by another party, or run their own stake pools to earn rewards. The ability to delegate or pledge a stake is fundamental to the Cardano network, and the size of the stake is proportional to the ADA held.

Cardano’s Ouroboros protocol chooses who to add to the next block on the blockchain depends on the amount of stake delegated to a stake pool. The stake pool will then receive monetary rewards for adding a new block. The more stake delegated to a stake pool will enable the stake pool to be more likely to create the next block, and the monetary rewards will then be shared between everyone who delegated their stake to the stake pool.

Delegation on Cardano is enabled by Daedalus, a full node wallet developed by IOHK, the blockchain engineering company behind the network. Cardano’s current delegation works in the 1 to 1 method, where if a user wishes to delegate the stake of the ADA cryptocurrency to a stake pool, one wallet corresponds to one stake pool.

If a user wanted to delegate staking to many different pools, the user would need to manually split the wallet in order to stake in different pools. Hoskinson explained that this was an implementation that allowed Shelley to be launched a bit earlier, he further admitted that this has some “undesired consequences” in decentralization.

According to Hoskinson, if users we able to easily stake with different pools, users could proportionately delegate, benefiting smaller pools, supporting decentralization.

Cardano introduces a new feature for delegation

Hoskinson introduced a user-driven concept to benefit smaller stake pools, which he calls “delegation portfolios.”

In the Daedalus wallet interface, there are small tiles that represent stake pools, where users will be able to select the ratios and different stake pools to delegate to, which then creates a portfolio. He added:

“Not only do you have the option to delegate to that portfolio, but you’ll also have the option to share.”

With this new feature, users will be able to share their portfolios with the broader Cardano community.

In addition to users being able to upload their portfolios into Atlas, a project which aims to create a seamless user experience for Cardano users. Project Atlas was described as a next-generation explorer, which is anticipated to be launched soon, says Hoskinson.

“I think this will really help diversity in the ecosystem because now people can have a great user experience to do one to many delegation, partial delegation to different pools.”

Uniswap DEX Launches UNI Governance Token

Uniswap, the decentralized exchange platform, has launched its own governance token called UNI. The on-chain market maker has minted 1 billion coins which will be released to the public over the next four years.

According to the Uniswap blog on Sept 16, the new tokens called UNI will be allocated to community members, team members and employees, investors, and advisors at a ratio of 60%, 21.51%, 17.8%, and 0.69% respectively.

Uniswap is a decentralized exchange in the form of two smart contracts hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, as well as a public, open-source front-end client. In less than two years, the Uniswap protocol has made major strides—supporting over $20 billion in volume and traded by over 250,000 unique addresses across 8,484 unique assets. Uniswap has also emerged as foundational DeFi infrastructure, with integrations across hundreds of interfaces and applications.

As a highly decentralized financial infrastructure with a platform that has thrived independently, Uniswap states it is now particularly well-positioned for community-led growth, development, and self-sustainability. The introduction of UNI (ERC-20) serves this purpose, enabling shared community ownership and a vibrant, diverse, and dedicated governance system, which will actively guide the protocol towards the future.

Per the Blog:

“UNI officially enshrines Uniswap as publicly-owned and self-sustainable infrastructure while continuing to carefully protect its indestructible and autonomous qualities.”

Uniswap states it will launch a liquidity mining program on Sept. 18, targeting its USDT, USDC, DAI, and wBTC pools.

In terms of governance of the UNI token—all Uni holders will have ownership of the governance process. Uniswap’s blog post said that team members will not participate directly in governance for the “foreseeable future,” but noted that team members could delegate votes to protocol delegates, and all UNI holders will have ownership of the governance process. Additionally, all Uni tokens dedicated to employees, investors, and advisors have a four-year vesting schedule.

Yearn.finance Proposal to Create ETH 2.0 Validator Vault Could be a Game-Changer for Staking

Ethereum developers have recently announced the launch of ETH 2.0, expected on Dec. 1. Retail investors could soon have the opportunity to earn on ETH 2.0 if a proposal on Ethereum 2.0 validator vault on Yearn.finance passes.

Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 is expected on Dec. 1, and the ETH community has already begun staking ETH via deposit contracts. The contract requires 524,288 ETH in order to proceed with the launch. If the required amount has not been reached a week before the launch date, the launch will then be delayed to seven days after the threshold has been reached.

So far, 50,273 Ether has been deposited, worth around $22.3 million. In order to attract more ETH stakers, the Yearn governance community has proposed an ETH 2.0 validator vault.

This vault would enable staking rewards for investors via liquidity provider (LP) tokens. When investors deposit an amount of ETH to these vaults, they would receive the same amount in yBETH in return, Yearn’s beacon Ethereum pool token.

The proposed ETH 2.0 validator vault works in a similar way to a mining pool on the proof-of-work network, where hash rates are pooled together. This process would allow retail investors to deposit ETH in smaller amounts, while still being able to participate in staking.

Ahead of Ethereum’s beacon chain to be launched on Dec. 1, ETH holders have been depositing ETH, and exactly 32 ETH to accumulate the sum needed to reach the limit before Dec. 1. 32 ETH is not a small amount, and this has been a high cost of entry, which could very much limit the number of investors from staking.

Vitalik has contributed around $1.3 million in ETH, and he has contributed via different Ethereum addresses. While ETH has been pouring in for staking, large amounts of ETH has been pulled off of exchanges.

The Yearn ETH 2.0 validator vault could add incentives for retail investors to stake on the network, and could also create secondary markets for Ethereum 2.0, which could also provide liquidity, and lending, which could fuel the DeFi community. These added incentives not only attract retail investors but also other investors that hold large amounts of ETH who are looking to remain liquid while supporting the launch of ETH 2.0

IOHK Chief Scientist Discusses the Advantages of Cardano's Rewards Sharing Scheme

Chief Scientist of IOHK and Cardano enthusiast Aggelos Kiayias wrote an article entitled “The general perspective on staking in Cardano”.

He thinks Cardano’s most important and fundamental goal is the concept of decentralization. As protocols and parameters are the foundation for any blockchain, the planned changes of the Cardano parameters will impact the staking ecosystem, thus the rewards sharing scheme.

Besides community as a key to project success, he also highlights that “observance, interpretation, and social norms play a crucial role in shaping its resilience and longevity”.

As for Cardano’s principles and practical intent, he prefers proof-of-stake consensus over resource-based proof-of-work (PoW) used in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Resource-based consensus could lead to pooling resources for economic reasons, which may lead to dictatorship or oligarchy. He thinks the stake is a virtual resource self-evident in the blockchain system itself.

When talking about reward sharing scheme goals, he said:

“Contrary to other blockchain systems, Cardano uses a reward sharing scheme that (1) facilitates staking with minimum friction as well as (2) it incentivizes pooling resources in a way that system-wide decentralization emerges naturally from the rational engagement of the resource holders.”

To reach Cardano’s objectives, he believes that there are two different paths for staking: pledging which is for stake pool operators and delegating for non-operator delegators. The scheme seems like EOS’s delegated proof-of-stake (DPOS) consensus, but with more focus on decentralization.

In the end, he lists guidance for delegators, pool operators and exchanges, to reach Cardano’s objective. It is uncertain how all involved will react to the new staking scheme and how this will influence Cardano’s ADA price.

More Than 50% of ETH Has Now Been Staked in Preparation for Ethereum 2.0 Mainnet

With just a week left before Ethereum 2.0’s launch, the staked deposits that are needed for the blockchain upgrade to happen have surged and topped 50% of its target.

A total of 524,888 Ether (ETH) are needed for ETH 2.0 mainnet to launch on December 1. This equates to 32 ETH per validator. At the time of writing, Ethereum’s launch pad has recorded that 294,304 ETH has been locked in, an impressive amount staked considering the lack of validators that was reported last week.

According to lead Ethereum coordinator Danny Ryan, the staked investments must be locked in seven days before December 1. If the required amount of Ether is not locked in by November 24, the genesis of ETH 2.0 will once again be delayed.

Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has taken the optimistic approach as validator participation seems to have surged in a short period of time. Compared to last week, when the staking balance was just nearing 20% of its threshold, this is good progress. Buterin tweeted:

“The #eth2 deposit contract has reached more than half of its target (currently at ~278000 ETH deposited), with the bulk of the deposits taking place in the last three days!”

Why will the beacon chain be better than a PoW blockchain?

The Ethereum 2.0 mainnet will feature the first phase of the new blockchain update, which will be a beacon chain. The mainnet’s goal will be to transition to a pure proof-of-stake protocol, as opposed to the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus many cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin run on.

An Ethereum pioneer retweeted by Buterin vouched for Ethereum’s beacon chain’s efficacy and faster transaction time in comparison with a proof-of-work chain. In addressing what should be expected of the beacon chain, he said:

“Faster sync times, better light client guarantees, reduced (maybe 0) ‘selfish mining’ risk, per-confirm reversion probability much lower in normal case (no attacks + good global network latency), better randomness, reduced losses if unexpected quantum breakthroughs appear.”

According to many, the proof-of-stake model will also be great for sustainability, as it will be more energy-efficient than proof-of-work blockchains. In addition, stakers stand to gain more profits with ETH 2.0, and scalability – the computing power or the amount of transactions that can be processed by software at a given time – will also be increased.

In tandem with Ethereum’s anticipated mainnet launch and Bitcoin’s bullish rally, Ethereum’s price has also skyrocketed. It has gained over 24% in the past week, currently trading north of $580 on CoinMarketCap. On-chain analytics also found that new Ethereum addresses have been increasing, which may imply that there has been renewed interest in the altcoin.